Playing Catch-Up With Sheffield

By JACK CURRY

Published: August 26, 2004

The now-familiar-looking 11-year-old with slits for eyes, a space between his two front teeth and the beginning of a mischievous grin announced himself to a national audience during the introductions for the 1980 Little League World Series.

"Gary Sheffield. Catcher."

Yes, that is the Yankees' Gary Sheffield as an 11-year-old staring into the television camera to give his name and what now seems like an odd position for him to be playing on the team from Tampa, Fla. Gary Sheffield, a catcher?

When Sheffield finished his introduction, he turned to the right and smiled at two teammates, flashing the kind of smile that he said expressed how cool it felt to be 11, to be playing for a world championship and to be doing it on ABC's "Wide World of Sports."

"I was even hitting third," said Sheffield, laughing over his little-boy voice and mannerisms.

Sheffield watched a videotape of the game - played 24 years ago - for the first time last week in a Minneapolis hotel. The normally subdued Sheffield was excited to see the tape, but in the 75-minute session his emotions veered from being happy about some sweet memories and permanent friendships to being disappointed about some lost chances that day and unfulfilled potential in subsequent years.

Even nearly 25 years later, Sheffield still wonders how his Belmont Heights team lost to Taiwan, 4-3. As powerful as the Taiwanese players were, Belmont Heights, which drew players from one of the bleakest projects in Tampa, had two future major leaguers in Sheffield and Derek Bell, a third player who was a first-round draft choice and a fourth who was also drafted.

"We thought we'd just dominate them," Sheffield said.

He also lamented how he forfeited a chance to play in the World Series when Belmont Heights returned a year later because he was suspended for raising a bat to his coach during a disagreement. He tried to get reinstated, then tried to switch to a different league, but both efforts failed.

"It took years for me to get over that," Sheffield said. "It's like, 'How can you do that to a 12-year-old kid?' I made a mistake, but I paid the biggest price you could ever pay for it."

Long before Sheffield was a Yankee and a contender for most valuable player, piling up critical hits while playing with a separated shoulder, he was a talented, determined, ornery, outspoken Little Leaguer.

So, he said, some things about him have not changed. Including the fact that Sheffield plans to watch the Little League final on Sunday and also guess who might reach the majors.

"I played in that game, and that's when I really knew I wanted to be a baseball player," Sheffield said.

Twenty-four summers ago, after a forceful rainstorm that Sheffield could not remember, the sun came out in Williamsport, Pa., and Sheffield moved behind the plate to catch Kirk Walker, his close friend. Sheffield had the same stiff-legged gait as he eased into position, but there was a difference between then and now.

"That's when I used to be able to squat," Sheffield said.

He explained how there was animosity between the teams before the first pitch because of a Ping-Pong squabble one day earlier. The Tampa players, a group of 14 African-American boys, wanted to use the tables, but the Taiwanese players, who on average were three inches taller, wanted to continue playing.

Because the players could not speak the same language, Sheffield said he and his teammates started "mocking them and stuff" to try to force their way on to the tables. A fight nearly ensued, but after some international trash-talking and one wayward kick, Sheffield said they eventually shared the tables.

"They kept our teams apart after that," he said.

The first inning wound up being one Tampa would long regret. The jittery team made three errors, which contributed to two runs. Sheffield said his teammates, who tried to intimidate opponents by rapping (he said they called it rhyming then) from the dugout, were the ones who panicked.

But Ty Griffin, who was later a first-round pick of the Chicago Cubs, hit a one-out homer in the first to trim the deficit to 2-1. Sheffield, who was 105 pounds, batted next. He looked skinny and serious in a blue, gold and white uniform with South printed across the chest and a 3 on his back.

The young Sheffield did a 180-degree twist out of the way of the first breaking ball from Lee Shuh-Shin, causing the 35-year-old Sheffield to chuckle. Sheffield was in a Pete Rose-like crouch on the screen. Surprisingly, he did not wiggle his bat above his head.

These days, he never stops wiggling it until he swings. Twenty-four years ago, Sheffield drove a fastball to right field, lining out.

"They were throwing so hard," he said. "We'd never seen balls that hard. They said it was the equivalent of 95."

After the nervous first, Tampa relaxed. Sheffield had a swagger behind the plate and framed pitches adeptly. He once thought he would "be a catcher all my life" because he liked the toughness of it. But Sheffield shifted to second base as a freshman at Hillsborough High School because no one in the school's history had ever started at catcher as a freshman; Sheffield wanted to be a starter.

Taiwan swatted consecutive homers in the third to bump its lead to 4-1. The first homer irked Sheffield because his own teammates slapped hands with Lee as he rounded the bases.

Sheffield explained his anger by saying, "You beat me and I didn't like it." Bell had a chance to make a leaping catch on a bullet to right by Chen Sheng-Dean, but he missed the ball by a few inches.